I'd like to be more bipartisan, and I try all the time — because the right gets it Right a lot. They're right to want to say "get up and do something about your life," because at some point it comes down to each of us individually. At some point we've got to decide to climb a little higher if we're going to leave life better than we came in. The Right says TEACH a man to fish.

The Left gets it right too though. Not everyone can make that first step. Some people are born into a situation where they're first step is booby-trapped. For some people it's not just a first step, but a leap like Batman made to get out of the pit in The Dark Knight Rises — and it took Batman more than one try by the way. The Left says GIVE a man a fish.

So I'd like to be bipartisan. But the fact is that the choice isn't between GIVE a fish or TEACH to fish. If that was the choice then you'd find me on the Right.

The fact is that the Left is filling a need when they're giving a man a fish and the right isn't teaching anyone to fish. Some people do, don't get me wrong; some people are really helping people get out of where they came from by teaching them everything they know about fishing. Some people do, but that's not the Right, it's just people, and it's too few people.

The Left, through programs and welfare are filling the need of giving people that first fish, that first leg up. Sure they don't do a good job of the follow-up and absolutely necessary teaching about fishing. But no one is doing a good job there, and the Right isn't offering that as an alternate choice.

The Right says get rid of welfare, but doesn't offer to replace it with an option. That's ridiculous. It's stupid. And it's neglectful. The people who need welfare in order to some day climb out of their situation then have no fish and no fishing rod and no knowledge about the secret fishing spots that many of us take for common knowledge.

So it's not "give a fish vs. teach a fish." The choice I see offered to the American people is "give a fish vs. keep the fish for ourselves and hopefully a few of our teachers out there devote their lives to finding and teaching our at-risk populations as much about fishing as they can on their own dime."

Neither is perfect, but at least we're doing something when we offer that first bit of good will.

Well it’s about time!

Minot High School caught up with the times this year and adopted a winter semi-formal. The times have managed to elude MHS since its very first winter, but no more! Many other state high schools have been sporting similar wintry dances for years now. Hopefully the Snow Flake Break will become an annual tradition.

What is commonly called a Snow Ball, we are calling Snow Flake Break. And first off, I’d better make it clear that a “Snow Ball” is not the same as a “snowball.” A snowball is a spherical object made of snow, while a Snow Ball refers to a fancy (or in our case semi-fancy) dance held in the wintertime.

Winter dances date all the way back to the Russian Revolution in 1917. A group of college students were putting together a dance and wanted a new “catchy” name. They had just been to the Ice Ball (during Russia’s ice season) and a clever young Russian came up with Snow Ball, or снежок (snye-ZHAWK).

It was a big hit and the Snow Ball has been with us, humans, ever since. The same can’t be said for the Ice Ball however. It’s dreadful temperatures and prevalent ice lead to its last appearance in the year 1922.

The Russian Snow Ball was always a week-long affair and featured different activities for each night of the week. There was ice-skating, ice-fishing, ice-scraping, an ice-sculpting competition, and finally the Ball on Friday night (weather permitting of course).

The Snow Ball has been held every year since 1917 in Russia and today is as rich with tradition as Christmas. Being so popular, the tradition started to branch out to other countries but really gained speed in the 20’s.

Not long after the first commercial radio broadcast in 1920, news of the Russian’s winter dance and festivities spread to all snow-covered corners of the world. It swept the world by storm and was “the Bee’s Knees” for roughly ten years but slowly lost popularity and came to be celebrated with about as much enthusiasm as Arbor Day.

The Snow Ball was revived triumphantly during the late fifties in England and came with the Beatles to America in 1964. The first Snow Ball in the U.S. was held in a vague town in Rhode Island the following year but was called a Winter Formal because it was “more American.”

The Winter Formal spread fiercely through the U.S. and became especially popular in high schools, where the majority of them are held today. The celebration still lasts one week but the traditional Russian ice-tivities are now replaced with more American activities that vary with each Formal. All, however, are more fun than ice-scraping.

Since the turn of the Millennium, Winter Formals have started to include a dinner party before their Friday dances with the hopes of relieving the stress on stressed students having to make reservations for dinner. The dinner has been widely enjoyed, and plus, you’re guaranteed a seat!

Though a Snow Ball has been discussed for years at MHS, this year we made the commitment and became a tri-dance school. We are very proud to be a part of the Earth’s tradition of wintry themed dances. You can all give yourselves a pat on the back; well done, team!

The Minot State University Arabic Club is holding an event on September 11th. The Minot Daily News, in pyramid format, started their article of the event like this:

Minot State University's new Arabic club hopes to promote better understanding of the Muslim community with a cultural event scheduled the anniverary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Really?! No way, I thought. Not on the anniversary.

Yeah, I get that it wasn't all of Islam (or everyone that speaks Arabic), that attacked the US on that day and that the Minot Daily News is/has-for-years-been clearly biased (which is why the article starts so destructively) and I really truly believe that it's the right thing to do to foster better understanding between America—the Minot community included—and the Arabic world, but...

And then I couldn't finish my thought; I thought But what? But what?

But what?

After first admitting to myself that Americans have a generally bloated and prejudiced aversion to the Arab world (certainly to Islam), I could only finish my thought by adding but September 11th isn't the right day... And to take it one step further—to explain why it's not the right day—I had to add because September 11th is very sad for us and we want to be angry. 

An event that supports and hopes to spread understanding between Muslims and Americans shouldn't be on that day, I thought.

Then I thought about my thoughts (a talent which, when utilized, makes us human and separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom). Two things injured me when I introspected. First, Muslims and Americans are not mutually exclusive groups; in fact we have a Muslim community in Minot. Why did my thoughts naturally place them as separate groups? Second, I couldn't believe that I had rationalized my negative reaction to the event by admitting that we, as Americans, would rather spend the day being angry than being even a little open to the possibility that we shouldn't hate an entire religion.

Because if we step outside of our ridiculous media, and biases, and emotions, we can see the world for what it really is.

In the real world, terrorists bombed the Trade Center on 9/11. They used planes, and citizens, and so very many people died, and the terrorists were Muslim. In fact, the terrorist group they were a part of claimed to be supporting Islam with their acts. Another fact: most Muslims can't reconcile the attacks with their belief and faith in Islam. They can't believe that people could read their holy book in such a way to lead to such a tragedy. They hate the attacks just as much as non-Muslims do.

September the 11th is a very sad day for Americans. We were attacked. We lost our family members and friends. We didn't feel safe in our own homes. And we remember just where we were each year on its anniversary. However, we've grown to hate entire groups of people out of misguided—deliberately misguided—anger. September 11th is a day to be sad, to remember, to re-center ourselves...

But.

September 11th can no longer be a day we also set aside to be angry, to condemn an entire culture, to hate.

It's not the perfect day to promote better understanding, but it's just as good as any other, and maybe even a bit better because it brings our prejudices out into the open where, hopefully, we can see them for how ugly they really are.

Really, that's all this is about. It's just a link to a sweet page about some awesome posters. I hope you enjoy.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/16/vintage-science-ads-1950s-1960s/

I've been interested in learning Quechua (a native Peruvian language) for all of about a month and a half. I haven't looked into it a lot, but I just found some information that I thought was interesting. And I've got to give credit to Barry Brian Werger who seems to have put together the website where I got this info.

Singular		Plural
NOQA	I	NOQAYKU (exclusive) NOQANCHEQ (inclusive)	we (and not you) we (you and I or us)
QAN	you	QANKUNA	you all
PAY	he, she	PAYKUNA	they

One thing I really like is that Quechua has an exclusive "we" form to mean "we but not you." English and Spanish both lack this form so you can never tell if the speaker is including you or not.

Here's an example of how they conjugate words (simple present tense):

RIY - to go
Singular		Plural
-NI	RINI: I go	-YKU -NCHEQ	RIYKU: we go RINCHEQ: we go
-NKI	RINKI: you go	-NKICHEQ	RINKICHEQ: you all go
-N	RIN: he/she goes	-NKU	RINKU: they go

I find it so interesting to see how a non-romance language is put together. Interesting tidbit though: the verb "to speak" in Quechua is parlay which is almost exactly what it is in French, parler.

My ticket for Machu Picchu included a ticket to climb a lesser known, ableit in-plain-sight, land mark: Huaynapicchu. It's the mountain looming behind Machu Picchu in every postcard of the place that you've ever seen (I have a picture like I'm talking about on my post "See"). I was going to climb it to the peak, a la cima.

The path.

The steps—the climb—up to the top was made by the Incas. The steps are steep, but when they get really steep there's a rope (which was not made by the Incas). However, about two-thirds of the way up the trail takes a break from steps. Now the trail was just a steep, narrow trail of mountain. Here and there you'd get that rope, but more often than not you just relied on your balance and footing as you climbed ragged rocks up and up and up. You look over the edge, which is inches from you, and see just how high you are and just how easy it would be to make a mistake and fall off the mountain.

At this point it struck me: if something were to happen, there's no one to fall back on. There aren't park rangers or security guards on the mountain. If you were step wrong and shatter your ankle, there's no way you're getting down the mountain without using that same ankle. If you have a heart attack, there's no one to call for a helicopter—and if there were it would be impossible for the helicopter to pick you up from the mountain side. If you trip and fall, you could actually plummet from the side of the mountain.

Huaynapicchu.

We were all tourists climbing this mountain, but we were each entirely alone, entirely responsible for ourselves, entirely independent. It was not entirely familiar for me. My dependence was wrenched from me because Huaynapicchu rendered it impossible to hold onto. It was empowering. More so than at any other time in my life, I felt a powerful sense of being alone; alone in the sense of being a lone one: a lone person, independent of all others. Not a sense of irresponsibility of my effect on others, but a sense of total responsibility for my effect on myself.

At the top of Huaynapicchu I looked around and saw everyone else who had hiked to the peak as well, all on our own, each one of us. I've never felt or been quite as accountable for my actions as at that moment. Going back down the mountain the feeling stayed with me. The deep, clear breathes of independence at the peak of Huaynapicchu were very unfamiliar but very welcome.

Sixty-three.

Today you'll learn how to say "feces sample" if you look again at the title of this post. A week ago Brandon and I spent our days at the clinic working in the laboratory. It's a very interesting place to work. It's also really fun because the people in the lab are hilarious and really relaxed.

Most days the lab has been my favorite place to work because the people are so great. However, one Monday about a week ago, the lab was a pretty crappy place. Let's take that literally. On a regular day there are about 10 sample of urine, 15 samples of feces, and plenty of blood samples.

On the Monday I'm talking about there were 63 poop samples! It was a day full of a gracious amount of smells and I don't care to repeat it. The poop never stopped showing up at the window. We'd finish making 10 slides and then 10 more would magically appear—one of the worst kinds of surprises indeed.

Since that Monday I've worked more in the lab again (after really psyching myself up) but we've never come close to 63 poop samples again. You have to be thankful for small miracles.